A typical internal combustion engine of the reciprocating piston type includes a combustion space in which a piston is movable. The compression of a fuel mixture in the cylinder by the piston, when ignited, increases the pressure within the cylinder and drives the piston and the cylinder heads apart. At the end of the power stroke, an exhaust port opens releasing the burned gases. A new fuel mixture is compressed and the cycle repeats itself.
Various attempts have been made in the past to provide a rotary internal combustion engine wherein the pistons do not reverse direction as in a reciprocating piston engine but rather move relative to the cylinders which rotate with the cylinder housing through an arcuate path. Representative prior art patents illustrating such devices are shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,547,991 issued July 28, 1925 to A. F. Wood et al. entitled ROTARY GAS ENGINE; 1,940,049 issued Dec. 19, 1933 J. Dap entitled MACHINE HAVING PISTONS AND CYLINDERS ARRANGED AROUND A CIRCUMFERENCE; 2,328,799 issued Sept. 7, 1943 to J. A. Gaylord entitled ROTARY PISTON MECHANISM; and 2,353,065 issued Sept. 7, 1943 to J. A. Gaylord entitled ROTARY PISTON MECHANISM. In each of the above mentioned and other prior art patents, the cylinder is disposed circumferentially with respect to the crank shaft or equivalent component and moves in a rotary manner with respect thereto. The basic drawback of the prior art devices resides in the complex mechanisms involved for holding or locking the piston in position to prevent retrograde movement during the power stroke and to shift the piston within the cylinder in the opposite direction during the corresponding compression stroke. The mechanisms for holding and returning the piston during the various strokes have typically involved gear mechanisms, cam and cam follower mechanisms, wobble plates and the like to cause movement of the pistons while maintaining a continuous rotation of the cylinder and housing. Such prior art devices have not won widespread commercial acceptance as they were extremely large, complicated and subject to failure with breakage or wear of the mechanical meshing components.
The present invention overcomes the difficulties encountered in such prior art devices in its provision of braking means for holding the piston from retrograde movement during the power stroke and additionally in the provision of biasing means for urging the piston into the cylinder during the compression stroke. In the present invention, the involved and complex meshing gear components have been eliminated, thus, significantly simplifying the structure.